"Heavy like a Tyson blow to the dome…"

It’s all the rage.  Everybody’s doing it.  C’mon, you know you wanna’.  It’s not habit forming. 

It’s not gonna’ hurt.  Ok, it only hurts a little the first few times.  It gets better the more you do it.  You’re gonna’ want to do it all the time.

*sigh*

Those two innuendo-riffic paragraphs apply to the very same thing.  Exercise.  And on that note, here we are again after a long while.

The last time we saw our hero, he was attending Kuk Sool Won classes in an attempt to lose some weight, regain some of his old dexterity and have some fun learning a new ass-whoop skill.  Then he went and bought a house.  The house sat in the passenger seat, grabbed hold of that Kuk Sool Won emergency brake and yanked with all it’s might.  It took everything our brave hero had to keep from going through the windshield as the exercise vehicle skidded and shuddered to a noisy halt with the tires smoking and going molten.

So, at least for the near foreseeable future Kuk Sool Won is off the menu as it costs more than I have to dedicate to it these days — both in terms of money and time.  With travel figured in, every Kuk Sool Won session would gobble upwards of three hours of my day, several days a week.  I know, it’s oh so easy to rationalize and justify not attending an exercise program.  I feel like such a cop-out.  One day I’d like to get back to the classes as I was having a pretty good time while I was there.  Don’t ask when, I dunno.

So, now you’ve been brought up to the present day.

What with the seeming whirlwind movement by some of you towards the "get healthier" and "move around more" camps, I’m going to give in to the modern day incarnation of peer pressure.  I’m going to be weak and crumble under the weight of the need to become stronger.  And lighter.

But I’m going to do it on my terms.  I’m going to get violent.

When I was a kid, I used to box.  I’d wrap my hands, don the gloves and knock the ever-loving shit out of another human being (who incidentally was trying to do the same to me).  I had formal training, learned all the moves, the form and how to jump rope.  It was a good time and it was hard work.  It’s a lot more than just swinging your fists till you connect with something solid.  Ok, it IS that right up to the point where you get knocked loopy and decide to learn how to duck & weave and how to plant a glove squarely and accurately in the face of someone who is doing a lot of the same calculated wiggling you’re up to.  That’s the part that takes a lot of work.

Here we are many years later.  I know myself well enough to know that a headlong rush into an ironclad and rigorous exercise regimen will have a shorter life span than a fart in a wind tunnel.  I need something that I can do at my own pace and doesn’t come with a laundry list of instructions, that I will enjoy, that costs relatively little, that doesn’t rely on another human being, that can be done in any weather, and doesn’t require an extended road-trip to get to.  This is the building block that can and will — if successful — lead to further vigorous movement that will get and keep me in shape that hopefully can be described as something better than "doughy".  What can I say… I’m inherently lazy.

After a metric ass-ton of research, pricing, driving around and looking at equipment (and subsequently being shocked at how relatively inexpensive the gear is) I have bought an 80lb boxing "heavy bag".  I’m going back to my roots.  Punching the heavy bag is the portion of boxing training that offers the most thorough all-body workout and development of strength.  It does not require me to buy a roomful of fancy equipment and weights and it’s moderately cheap and simple.  Eventually I will mooch off of "Club Mensa" over at GonzO and ShortBus’ place for weight training, but that is a plan for later.  The accessories include wraps for your hands, a decent pair of heavy bag gloves and a jump rope for warming up and getting some aerobic exercise (boxing being anaerobic in nature).

So now I’m geared up.  The bag has been hung and a few test pokes have been made at it.  Pretty soon I’ll be beating the crap out of it, but first I need to reacquaint myself with the basic forms and techniques.  I still mostly remember them, but it’s gonna take a few sessions of practice to get back into good habits.  Good habits are necessary if you don’t want to fuck up your wrists.  Good equipment is necessary if you don’t want to walk away with broken fingers.  Fun!

I’m also looking forward to using this as a stress reliever.  Jebus knows I’ve demolished enough shit over the years when I’ve been pissed off.  Now I have a device created for the express purpose of absorbing physical abuse.  I just need to continually remind myself not to use knives on it.

*sigh*